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Meatpacker ban rejected

HAY MAKER

Well-known member
Meatpacker ban rejected
By The Associated Press - Friday, May 02, 2008

WASHINGTON

Farm bill negotiators rejected an attempt to prevent meatpackers from owning cattle more than two weeks before slaughter Thursday, a disappointment for ranchers in the Midwest and northern plains who have been pushing for the ban for many years.

Many other parts of the massive bill - including increased subsidies for some crops, country of origin labeling for meats and a permanent farm disaster program - are favorable for the farm belt, however.

Negotiators are still finalizing details of the five year, almost $300 billion bill, and the White House has signaled that President Bush may veto it. But many of the details are set, and farm groups would get much of what they asked for.

"The Senate-House conference committee on the farm bill is now in the final stages of a strong, bipartisan bill that that will bring new funding and better policy in core farm bill initiatives - conservation, energy, nutrition and rural development - while continuing and strengthening farm income protection," Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Friday.

Harkin and other negotiators worked out many of the final details of the bill in a seven-hour conference Thursday night and early Friday morning. Lawmakers participating in that meeting rejected the meatpacker ban after Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican, offered an amendment to keep the provision in the bill.

Ranchers advocating the change want to ban meatpackers from owning or contracting for cattle more than a week or two before slaughter so large companies can't have control over the cattle for a long period of time and would be forced to pay current market prices for meat.

Supporters of the reform say meatpackers can manipulate the prices they pay for cattle with "captive supplies," or stock they own or control through contracts and marketing agreements. They argue that such control lets meatpackers time their purchases, allowing them to save money but also depress prices.

Large meatpacking companies say they should be to buy cattle whenever they want to.

"We are up against entrenched power, we're up against big money," North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat, said of the years-long effort to ban the practice.

The bill does include other priorities for ranchers in the West and Midwest, including language that would require country-of-origin labels on meats and other foods. Northern ranchers have long pushed for such a law, which would help them compete against Canadian ranchers and give consumers more information about where their food is coming from.
Another priority for farmers in the region has been a permanent disaster fund for growers who lose crops due to weather. A provision written by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., would allocate $3.8 billion for those weather-related payments.

Some problems remain with the bill. Negotiators have still not finalized limits on the size of subsidy payments to wealthy farmers, a major sticking point with the Bush administration. Bush has indicated he is not happy with the legislation's progress, saying earlier this week that it's "bloated" with farmer subsidies.

The White House has also recently raised new objections to provisions in the bill for sugar, according to Conrad and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn.

That includes language which calls on the federal government to buy surplus sugar and sell it to ethanol producers, where it would be used in a mixture with corn. It is designed to help protect sugar growers from the effects of a North American Free Trade Agreement provision, which took effect this year, allowing Mexico to export unlimited amounts of sugar to the U.S.

Minnesota is the nation's largest producer of sugar beets, and Peterson represents the state's sugar beet-growing Red River Valley. North Dakota and Wyoming are also large sugar beet producers.

North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy, a Democrat, said Thursday there is a "decent chance" the president will sign the legislation.

"If he doesn't sign it we're going to be prepared to push hard for an override," Pomeroy said.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, and John McCain, a Republican, are also jumping into the farm bill fray. McCain said earlier this week that he would veto the bill if he were president, saying it rewards wealthy people.

Clinton, who is running against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in June 3 Democratic primaries in South Dakota and Montana, responded to McCain in a statement Friday, saying that rural America is already struggling due to skyrocketing energy prices, an economic downturn and rising food prices.

"Saying no to the farm bill would be saying no to rural America," she said.

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